


sung by the railway

by jeien



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Flashbacks, M/M, Post-Inter-High, Post-Winter Cup in the second chapter, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-12 09:02:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4473335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeien/pseuds/jeien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <i>"He closes his eyes. If thinks hard enough, Aomine could still see tufts of sky blue hair beside him, carefully observing the other passengers."</i>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>Side A: Aomine takes the train to escape practice and winds up thinking about the past.<br/>
Side K: Kuroko attempts to fix more than just his shooting fundamentals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Side A: And then he knew regret

**Author's Note:**

> While this hasn't been the first KNB fic I've started writing, this is the first time I'm posting one! Also, this is apparently the first thing that came into mind when I heard Sarishinohara by Mikoto-P for the first time in like a year. AoKuro and trains. 
> 
> This first part takes place post-Interhigh but pre-Winter Cup. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Edit: Also, this chapter now has a fanmix! [Click here to listen](http://8tracks.com/jeien/sung-by-the-railway-side-a)!

Aomine hadn’t taken the train in a long time.

There really wasn’t any need for it. All the places he needed to go was within walking distance of Touou. Even when it was time for him to move out of the academy’s dormitories at the end of each school year, his parents would pick him up by car.

He didn’t look at the overhead map right above the ticket dispensers: he just pressed a random button and let the machine eat up his thousand-yen bill. He grabbed the ticket as soon as the thing spat it out, ignoring the happy electronic voice thanking him for using the railway and to have a safe trip blah blah blah. He just wanted to leave the station before Satsuki found him and dragged his ass back to practice. It was the weekend, so the academy’s roof was locked and he was pretty damn sure that the team would collectively jump him if he retreated to his dorm. (Well, maybe not Sakurai; that guy would probably just stand by the door, apologizing.) Crafty guy like he is, Aomine figures they won’t send anyone to chase after him if he was too far away. It doesn’t matter if he goes to practice anyway—they’ll still win. Satsuki just thinks he’ll change if he shows up.

He moves across the platform and enters his train as the speakers overpower a high-pitched _Dai-chan!_ with its announcement: “The train is now leaving for Kanagawa.”

Aomine could see Satsuki running towards him from the stairs. The doors shut, stopping her in her tracks. He finally turned away and sat down as the train sped off.

Nothing’s going to be changing for a while.

—

_“So where’re we going?”_

_“I’m not sure, actually.”_

_“Wait, you don’t even know?!”_

_“We usually just walk or take the bus, so I thought taking the train would be a nice change of pace.”_

_“Seriously, we finally have a day without practice and your idea of fun is dragging me around to ride the train.”_

_“My idea of fun is anything as long as you’re here.”_

_“…Dammit. You’re lucky you’re cute. And that I’m such a nice guy.”_

_“Yes, Aomine-kun, I know.”_

—

It took about an hour to get to the train’s destination in the neighboring prefecture. He stretched his legs and ambled out of the train after the majority of the passengers rushed through the doors. Aomine wasn’t in any hurry. He had a lot of time to kill, even if it cost him a long lecture from Satsuki when he got back to Tokyo. But as he walked out of the station, he realized that he might not even have to wait that long.

Of all the times his memory failed him, he had to have forgotten that Kise’s school was in this prefecture.

“Let me guess,” Aomine said as Kise approached him. “Satsuki called you.”

“Momocchi’s just worried about you,” Kise replied, affirming his suspicions. Of fucking course.

“I’m not going back.”

“Figured as much.” Kise stuck his hands in his pockets and smiled at him. The gesture pisses him off as much as the idea of Kise thinking he knows him like the back of his hand (and he won’t try to argue with the repressed logical part of himself that’s saying _Well, you’ve been sort-of-friends with the guy for two years, so he might_ ). He continued, “I won’t force you to go back. She just wants me to stick around until you do.”

“I don’t need a damn babysitter.”

“We all think otherwise, Aominecchi,” Kise said and Aomine wants nothing more than to punch that damn smile off his face. “Besides, don’t you wanna play one-on-one? It’ll be a lot better than getting lost and missing the last train because you couldn’t find the station again.”

They had gone to Kanagawa last time too, so he somewhat remembers where things are. Sure as hell knows how to find his way back to the station. But Kise was a stubborn bastard. He would probably just follow Aomine no matter how he decided to answer.

Well, if Kise was willingly volunteering to get thrashed again, then he supposed one-on-one wouldn’t be so bad.

—

_“Oh, there’s a streetball court.”_

_“I would ask if basketball is the only thing you think about, but I already know the answer is yes.”_

_“Hey! I think about other stuff!”_

_“Like?”_

_“Like Mai-chan.”_

_“Unbelievable.”_

_“Shut up. I think about you, too.”_

_“Do I dare ask the ratio of thoughts about Mai-san and thoughts about me?”_

_“Eh. Thirty percent Mai-chan and seventy percent you. Actually, it’s starting to rise to seventy-five, so there.”_

_“Is that so? I’m actually surprised.”_

_“See? I love you that much.”_

_“Maybe bump up the seventy-five to a ninety and then I’ll be impressed.”_

_“Oh, come on!”_

—

They both took a break after five rounds. Kise had two bottles of Pocari ready so he didn’t have to risk Aomine running off while he was at a vending machine. Aomine hated how he was actually being competent today.

“Don’t you have practice?” was his last ditch attempt to get Kise to leave him alone.

“I told Kasamatsu-senpai it was an emergency.” Well, there goes that. Kise chuckled when he saw Aomine click his tongue. “You won’t be getting rid of me that easily!”

“Great…”

“Say, Aominecchi.” Kise took the sole grunt that followed as a sign to keep going, “Why’d you pick Kanagawa?”

He closes his eyes. If thinks hard enough, Aomine could still see tufts of sky blue hair beside him, carefully observing the other passengers. Old conversations echo faintly inside his head—sometimes about school, about basketball, about their old teammates. But they hardly talked about each other or what they had between them. They didn’t need to. They already knew each other as well as they could get and it seemed like that relationship was going to last forever.

It didn’t. He changed.

Aomine sighs, “I don’t fucking know.”

They both knew that was a lie. “You and Kurokocchi came here once during middle school, didn’t you?”

His mind answered with a resounding _Yes, we did_. On their last date before everything went to shit, Tetsu dragged his ass out of the comfort of his home to take the train somewhere. They ended up in Kanagawa and even though there was a perfectly good court nearby, Tetsu insisted on doing things other than basketball for once. They walked around a shopping district, bought a couple of things (a book for Tetsu, some insoles for himself), grabbed food from a cheap restaurant, walked some more, and went back to Tokyo on the last train. The whole thing had been uneventful by Aomine’s standards, but being able to hold Tetsu’s hand in the emptiness of the train car at that moment made the trip worth it.

“Who cares? It’s all in the past.”

When Aomine remembers Tetsu’s face during their Interhigh match, he knows that it’s too late to try and salvage what they had.

He pushed himself up on his feet, making Kise’s head turn suddenly. “Ready for another go around, Aominecchi? I still need to get my revenge on you for our Interhigh match!”

“I’m going home. I’m sick of this place.”

“And here I thought we were finally going to have some quality time together!”

Had Kise noticed Aomine balling up his hands into tight fists, he probably would have been able to avoid the punch to the gut. He took the opportunity to walk back to the station, shoving his hands in his pockets, while Kise was still doubled over from the blow.

—

_“You’re gonna get sick, reading on the train.”_

_“I’ll just make sure to throw up on Aomine-kun then.”_

_“That’s not funny.”_

_“Really? I thought it was one of my better ones.”_

_“You say that as if all your jokes aren’t bad.”_

_“Rude.”_

_“…It wasn’t that bad, though. Today, I mean. Not your joke.”_

_“Of course it wasn’t. You just tend to over-exaggerate when you complain.”_

_“Way to spoil the mood.”_

_“But you’re still holding my hand so the mood must be relatively okay.”_

_“Shut up and read your damn book.”_

—

Kise saw him off—reminding him to _Make sure you apologize to Momocchi properly!_ —and waved as the train to Tokyo left. It wasn’t as crowded as the noon train, but there were still enough of them to look at. A few baseball players chatting about how they couldn’t wait for the spring to start so they could play. Some college students ditching class because the lecturer was too boring. An elderly couple quietly sitting together. The usual businessmen. Tetsu would have loved observing this bunch.

Aomine would never admit to himself that he wanted to hold that hand again while there was still half an hour until his arrival to Tokyo: the small, bony one with all the calluses of hard work and passion for basketball. But he had no hand to hold anymore. He threw that right away.

And now, Tetsu moved on.

The train pulled up at the station and, like before, he took his time getting off. He spotted a wave of pink hair on the platform, by the stairs, and made his way over.

“Don’t tell me you stayed here the entire time,” Aomine said once he got there.

Satsuki frowned. “Stupid Dai-chan. Of course I didn’t.”

They walked out of the station together in awkward silence and headed back to the academy. He kept his eyes forward, not noticing that Satsuki was glancing up at him every now and then.

“So,” she finally said to break the quiet air between them, “what did you do there with Ki-chan?”

“One-on-one.”

She let out a half-laugh. “Just like old times, huh?”

Aomine scoffed, “Not even close. It was a waste of time.”

—

_“I’m sorry for keeping you out this late.”_

_“Hey, you said you wanted to spend the day with me and you did.”_

_“Hm. Should I be suspicious of you having no qualms about this date?”_

_“For fuck’s sake, it’s like you’re expecting me to say I had a shitty time with you and that I never want to do this thing again.”_

_“Well, I would certainly hope it’s not to that extent.”_

_“Unfortunately for you, I’m gonna say that I had a real nice time and that we should do this more often when we’re not going through Nijimura Hell.”_

_“I’d like that, Aomine-kun.”_

_“See you Monday?”_

_“Yes. Goodnight.”_

_“Night. Oh, uh, hey.”_

_“Hm?”_

_“Let’s take the train again, Tetsu. Next time, I mean.”_

—

He wasn’t even sure if there would even be a next time with Tetsu anymore.


	2. Side K: Knots becoming undone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long! I had wanted to work and finish this chapter last week, but Oofuri Rarepair Week came up and I wound up investing all my energy on meeting the deadlines to challenge myself. 
> 
> Thank you for all the kudos and comments from the last chapter and, again, I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Also: this chapter now has a fanmix! [Click here to listen!](http://8tracks.com/jeien/sung-by-the-railway-side-k)!

“I’m going to stop in here.”

“Huh?” Kagami stopped and looked at him, catching the ball he had been spinning on his finger. “The bookstore?”

“Yes,” Kuroko replied. “It’s been a while and I want to look around. You can go home ahead of me.”

“Well, if you say so. See you tomorrow then.”

Kuroko smiled softly, waving a hand goodbye. He figured Kagami wouldn’t want to accompany him. His basketball partner just wasn’t the type to be interested in such things outside of food and basketball. So Kuroko entered the well-lit store alone, eyes skimming over the book displays. He usually skips past the shelves by the front, since they tended to showcase the more recent best sellers. Kuroko’s tastes are much older—the type of stories dissected within the classroom much to the dismay of bored students who would much rather be having lunch. However, one cover made him stop and step back for a better look: it was the sequel to a book he had read back in middle school.

He remembers a train ride home with Aomine, but it starts to meld together with the memory of a rainy day and a broken heart.

He inhales deeply. Kuroko ends up leaving the store with the sequel and a new bookmark in tow.

—

_The leaves shuddered at the lonely wind that trailed behind him. His bare feet passed over every inch of the cracked earth Oyutsumi left behind in his destruction. Abaondoned, Tsukishiro could do nothing but weep at the loss of his beloved friend and his most precious treasure as he listlessly wandered down the road._

—

“Is that book good?”

Kuroko nodded, eyes remaining on the page. “Yes, I think so. I like the writing style.”

“Huh,” Kagami said. He took another huge bite out of his sandwich and asked with a muffled mouth, “What’s it about?”

“It’s not very polite to talk while you’re eating, Kagami-kun,” Kuroko said. He continued after hearing Kagami scoff, “It’s about an onmyouji and a fisherman who are very close friends. In the ending of the last book, the fisherman stole the onmyouji’s most important treasure—a piece of jade that he had apparently been holding in his mouth when he was born.”

He could see Kagami-kun’s ears perk up at the prospect of an impending battle. It was probably the result of all the American action movies he grew up with. “So the onmyouji guy’s gonna go after him and get his jade back?”

“Eventually.”

“Eventually,” Kagami echoed with mild disappointment. Kuroko nodded once more and the conversation stopped there. Kagami continued to give probing stares, expecting to hear more—because he knows that there’s a deeper issue beneath that curt response and stoic exterior and it’s just like Kuroko to remain enigmatic about the thoughts and feelings he’s not ready to share. But Kuroko continues to read and their two-desk world remains quiet despite the whirlwind of lunchtime noise surrounding them.

—

_The days blended together as the colors of night and day spilled all over the canvas of the world in a chaotic movement. Tsukishiro, worn and ragged, finally fell to his knees by the cape where he first saw Oyutsumi, casting his net into the waters. Armies of clouds seized the sky, rending asunder the memories of Oyutsumi’s profile, graced by the dawn light’s magnificence, happy smiling towards him._

_Lightning cleaved through the air as Tsukishiro cried out to the heavens, realizing that his Oyutsumi was lost forever._

—

“You want me to take him out for a day?”

“If you can,” Momoi’s voice rang from the other side of the phone. “I know we’ve wanted him to practice for—I dunno—the past two years, but now I’m starting to worry that he’s overdoing it.”

“Well, this _is_ Aomine-kun we’re talking about,” Kuroko said reflexively—and, briefly, he recalled having said those words at one point in middle school before things started falling apart. Aomine had always taken what he wanted to do to the extremes: whether it was practicing until he dropped or skipping it like the plague. Still, Kuroko had to wonder where this unnatural motivation came from. Even when they were in middle school, when practicing had been Aomine’s lifeblood, he had never gone far enough to cause people—especially Momoi—to be concerned about overexertion.

Well, he owed Momoi a few favors anyway. “I’ll check with my coach about our next free day. Hopefully it’ll be sometime soon so we can rectify this.”

“If it’s Riko-chan, I’m sure I can convince her! Thanks a bunch, Tetsu-kun!”

He ends the call with a murmured _No problem, Momoi-san_ and resumes his book, running through the many scenarios that could have forced Aomine to down himself in practice. Being his former light, Kuroko didn’t have to go too far to trace the source. _Ah_ , he thought as he read a passage of the story, _so that’s what it is_.

In two hours, he receives a text about tomorrow’s cancelled practice.

—

_One night, as he slept sickness away, a dream came to Tsukishiro. A messenger of the gods, robed in strips of starlight, called out to him: “Child blessed by the gods, Tsukishiro, why do you not give chase to the fisherman Oyutsumi to retrieve your jade?”_

_And Tsukishiro replied: “The jade piece—which I discovered to be the life given to me by the gods—rests now with he who abandoned me, for my life is nothing without my beloved friend. Surely this must be the will of the heavens, for they do not answer my pleas or prayers.”_

_“Go now, Tsukishiro,” the messenger commanded. “The heavens had remained silent until this moment—for the fisherman Oyutsumi, whom you adore so much, has lost himself. The gods urge you forward to make things right.”_

_Tsukishiro awoke and set off into the night despite his body’s weakness, taking nothing but the clothes on his back and his prayer beads._

—

“What’s going on in that head of yours?” was the first thing to come out of Aomine’s mouth when they met at the station. Kuroko had arrived a few minutes early and decided to read to pass the time.

“You make it sound like I have some ulterior motive.”

“You might as well, since Satsuki put you up to it.”

Kuroko hummed thoughtfully, placing the book in his basketball bag. He had invited Aomine out under the premise of practicing his shooting again, but the usual streetball court was under renovation. _Just meet me at the station_ , Kuroko texted since the station was almost exactly between the Touou dorms and his house, _I know another court we can use_. They weaved past the crowd of people rushing to get to wherever they needed to go—and Aomine didn’t piece it all together until Kuroko pushed him through the ticket gate without any alarms going off.

“Oi, Tetsu!”

“Don’t worry, Aomine-kun,” Kuroko assured, passing through the gate right after him. He picked up both of their tickets and continued to push him ahead. “I know where to go.”

He dragged Aomine down the stairs, onto a familiar platform. The sign above them only confirmed their destination and, honestly, Aomine should have known. “Tetsu…”

They stared at each other amidst the wave of exiting passengers, unable to find the right words to say next—until the speakers announced overhead: “The train for Kanagawa will be leaving in five minutes.”

“C’mon,” Aomine finally said, averting his eyes. He turned towards the train and stuck his hands in his pockets, moving past Kuroko. “Let’s go before we miss the damn thing.”

Kuroko followed. For a moment, it was almost like he was Aomine’s shadow again.

—

_He saw eyes like the sea with the intensity of a thousand wild, rolling waves. The air thrashed about them and they, alone, were within the eye of his storm._

_“I’ve finally found you, Oyutsumi.”_

_“What will you do now that you have?”_

—

“Tetsu, that book…”

They sat beside each other awkwardly. Kuroko, as anxious as he was for a conversation, knew that the topic would involve basketball and eventually lead to a discussion about the Winter Cup. He wasn’t sure if Aomine was ready for that kind of talk—and even if he was, Kuroko would still prefer to keep it between them.

“The one you were reading earlier,” Aomine added, shifting a little in his seat. “Ain’t that the sequel to the one you got a while back? I thought you said you hated that story.”

It took Kuroko all he had not to let his surprise show. He hadn’t expected Aomine to remember such a small thing. “I never said I hated the previous one.”

“You didn’t like the ending though.”

“I had said that I would have preferred a different one,” Kuroko corrected, ignoring the roll of Aomine’s eyes and the mumbled _Whatever, same thing_. He focused his gaze onto some of the passengers, quietly observing them: a group of teenage girls talking about their crushes, a traveling family of four with a third child on the way, the usual businessmen. Others were alone, busying themselves with their phones or their music players. Then there was Aomine, who had looked so much older and tired from what Kuroko could only guess were a maelstrom of things he was internally dealing with.

Aomine slouched a little further down in his seat and asked, “What if this one disappoints, too?”

“I’m hopeful about this one.” Kuroko replied, pulling the book out of his bag and opening it to where the bookmark nestled between the pages.

He could have sworn that he heard Aomine say _Just don’t throw up on me_ under his breath, but he didn’t want to wish for too much.

—

_“I challenge you to battle.”_

_“You cannot win.”_

_“You have lost yourself and I know now that the way things are as they stand is not right. So for you, my precious friend, I will fight.”_

_“You have a foolish heart, Tsukishiro. But come and try—I accept your duel.”_

—

“Alright, get to it.”

They had made a beeline for the court as soon as they got off the train. The memories of the first time they passed by this streetball court ebbed and flowed in Kuroko’s mind as they set their bags down by the fence. He retrieved the ball from his bag and set himself at a reasonable shooting distance, dribbling a few times. Aomine took a seat by their bags and watched Kuroko’s body mold into the basic shooting stance.

“The hell?” Kuroko released the ball and they both watched it bounce off the rim. “Tetsu, why are you shooting like that?”

“When I told you last night that I wanted to work on my shooting, I meant that I wanted to work on my fundamentals.”

Aomine sighed, “Look, we already know that your fundamentals will always suck no matter what you do about it. You have a shot that works so pulling this shit on me is just a waste of time for the both of us.”

“Just because it works,” Kuroko said, retrieving the ball, “doesn’t mean it’s right.”

“You fucking—” Aomine stopped himself and let out a sharp breath; he was starting to consider just leaving, Satsuki’s wrath be damned. “That shot helped you win your way to the top at Winter Cup. Don’t give me that ‘doesn’t mean it’s right’ shit.”

“It’s not just about the shooting, Aomine-kun.”

“Now you’re just fucking with me and I swear, Tetsu, I will fucking _leave_ —”

A missed fistbump. A rainy day. A hot spring. Hallways, roads, intersections—he walked away in all of them.

Kuroko held the ball in his hands and walked back to the fences, taking a seat beside Aomine. The air was still chilly in these last months of winter, but the trees were budding with leaves. The sky was sunny and once Kuroko processed that, it gave him strength.

“If you leave, then I will go after you,” he said. “I didn’t before because I thought that it would be okay. But I was wrong.”

He took the final leap and carefully leaned his head against Aomine’s broad shoulder. He could feel the muscles of his upper arm tense at the sudden contact. But he couldn’t deny that things finally clicked into place. Kuroko knew that this was how everything was supposed to be.

“I beat you, Aomine-kun. And because of that, I’m not afraid to go after you anymore. I will chase you to wherever it is you go if you run away again.”

The rest of the world turned without them. They could hear some cars honking, some children playing in the park a little ways down the road, birds chirping to each other, the hum of a larger vehicle, bicycle bells. They felt the warmth of the sun thawing out the numbness of their faces as the sun hit its peak.

He felt the warmth of Aomine’s hand rest on his head.

“Tetsu,” Aomine said with a shaky breath. “I… goddamn…”

“You don’t have to say anything else,” Kuroko said, closing his eyes. He allowed himself the trace of a smile to appear. “This is just fine, Aomine-kun.”

—

_“You…”_

_Tsukishiro smiled like the waning moon, whose light guided the lost in the night, and said, “I never said I would best your blade. All I needed was to destroy the jade that had been meant for me alone—for in your hands, it corrupted you.”_

_“My senses have returned to me,” said Oyutsumi. “Yet will the gods forgive us for destroying the blessing they gave to you?”_

_“Perhaps. We shall see.”_

_Lying on the sand, the two friends stared at the shifting tides as dawn broke and the light filled the sky for another day._

—

It was only a start. They had changed too much within the past few years to try and salvage exactly what they had. But this start was all they need—everything begins with the fundamentals.

On the train ride home, Kuroko quietly finished the book while his hand held Aomine’s, thinking that things will be just fine between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since Kuroko's such a literary kid, I figured instead of flashbacks that a book he's reading might resonate with him. With that in mind, I did a lot of research with East Asian literature to see what stylistic choices they made and tried to give a little bit of that feel. I wound up using Basho's haikus and Cao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber as my main references.


End file.
